War Vets Leader Blasts Tsvangirai / Biti

Harare, March 11, 2010 – War veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda has criticised Movement for Democratic Change leader and Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, for allegedly grabbing power from President Robert Mugabe after shying away from the June 27, 2008 Presidential election, where the veteran leader says he was headed for defeat.

Sibanda told journalists during a panel discussion at the journalists drking hole, Quill Club, on Wednesday evening that Tsvangirai was more concerned with enjoying power in the coalition government while abandoning the responsibilities that came with his position.

“They are in power sharing, not responsibility sharing,” said Sibanda, “Zanu PF succumbed to the pressure of the power sharing talks. The question is whose power is being shared?”

Sibanda said Zimbabwe risked plunging into another Israel which had no permanent government because of coalitions that disintegrate in the middle of their terms.

“We cannot have that scenario in our country because for a country to develop, it must have a permanent government and a permanent
government comes as a result of an election. But ...when there are elections, a person will say panapa ndaakudyiwa (Im losing ), let me find a way out.”

Tsvangirai, who won the March 29, 2008 elections did not contest the June 27 run off after the state and Zanu PF militants laid siege in
his political party structures, forcing key persons to his campaign to flee their constituencies.

An estimated 200 MDC supporters died as a result of the violence while thousands were displaced from their rural homes.

The MDC leader was made Premier after his party was persuaded into a shaky coalition government by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the AU with President Mugabe's Zanu PF.

Sibanda denied there was any violence during the time saying there were only isolated incidents of violence which were not enough to
derail an electoral process.

The controversial war veterans’ leader also criticised Finance Minister Tendai Biti for allegedly refusing to fund the country’s agricultural sector.

He said Biti, a key member of Tsvangirai’s MDC party, was deliberately undernourishing Zimbabwe’s land reform programme to create false impressions blacks were not capable of producing in the farms.

This he said would be reflected in a pending land audit by Zimbabwe’s unity government, creating a logical ground for white farmers to buy back land.

“We need to have the implements to make that land workable,” said Sibanda. "Biti is trying ...to show that people fail to buy these
implements then he carries out a land audit."